


Best Loved

by Deannie



Series: Ancient Truths [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-08-22
Updated: 1996-08-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 00:00:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder's strange behavior in Anasazi is turning everyone he trusts against him--even Scully?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Loved

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during Anasazi

"Okay kids," Bill Mulder said quietly. "We'll be next door at the Galbrand's." He looked at his firstborn, a leaden weight in his stomach that managed to slip slightly into his eyes. "Take care of your sister, Fox," he commanded. "You're in charge."

As she closed the door, his wife let out a despairing little sigh. He grabbed her hand, squeezing it thoughtfully. "They'll be okay, honey."

"But, Bill," she said forlornly.

"It's the government's party, dear," he replied, trying to convince her of their children's safety. "They'll be all right."

The party was a slightly nervous affair for them both. His wife stood at the window, looking longingly at their house next door, wishing she were there. Bill Mulder came up behind her, and put an arm around her shoulder.

"Dear..."

"How can they do this, Bill," she asked tearfully. "They're our children!" She turned to look at him, a horror in her eyes that would haunt him to his dying day. "He's our _son!_ "

She turned to the window suddenly, panicked, as they both heard a shrill, short cry from across the way. He could feel her muscles tense, and he held her firmly. "They'll be okay."

"But what if--" Her argument was cut off by the arrival of a handsome, tall young man, a cigarette in his hand. Bill had never seen him without one. Even when he came to the summer house in Quonochontaug. The man was a business associate.

Before they'd started working on their current project, Bill Mulder might almost have called him a friend.

"Bill," the young man said, a cloud of smoke escaping his lips. "It's nice to see you relaxing for once."

* * *

Bill Mulder brought his head up from the table with a jerk, ignoring the throbbing in his skull as he cut short the dream. "Relaxing." That cigarette-smoking bastard had been so slick! He had fooled Bill for years--his wife for much longer...

And by the time Bill had known what was going on, his daughter was already gone.

He hadn't seen the old man for years--not since Fox had graduated the Academy. Back then, the smoker had made a promise to his old friend. He'd take care of Fox--he'd make sure that the young agent was safe.

After seeing the man again today, his once-full lips now withered with age and twisted with power, Bill Mulder knew that he'd been tricked again. Fox wouldn't be safe. Not if his "old friend" had anything to do with it.

And again, Bill would end up failing his own blood. But first, his son would get the answers he'd been craving all his life.

Bill poured another glass of scotch, sipping at it and steeling himself as he picked up the phone.

* * *

_Mulder Residence  
Alexandria, VA_

Fox Mulder sat impatiently on his couch, waiting for the phone to ring. He had to find out about those files, and he had a niggling little suspicion in the back of his mind that Scully might not be willing to help him with this one.

She'd been so scared when she walked into his apartment earlier in the day. Scared of losing her job... Scared of him, maybe. She'd sounded like she was ready to run away when she asked him why he'd attacked the Assistant Director. And she'd gone from fear straight to disgust when he'd told her truthfully that he didn't know.

So here he sat, waiting for information. He stared at the taped "X" on his window, and again wished that the phone would ring.

Surprisingly, it did. He put down his glass of water and picked up the phone.

"Mulder," he announced tiredly.

It was the last person he'd ever have expected to hear. "Fox?" His father had that harsh sound to his voice, like he'd been drinking. "This is your father. I need to see you right away."

Mulder glanced at the window, frowning. "Where are you?"

"I'm at home," his father replied, and this time, Mulder could clearly hear his father taking a sip of something. "How soon can you be here?"

Probably scotch, Mulder thought dully, again looking out at the X on his window. It was the old man's drink of choice. There were always a couple of empty bottles of it around the house after Sam was gone... His father's voice broke into his thoughts with drunken urgency. "Fox... It's very important."

Mulder almost refused. He was waiting for information. He _had_ to stay here. If he left, X wouldn't come back, and he'd never find out what was on that tape. And he had to do that. He had a feeling that that tape would change his life.

Still, his father sounded as if it really was important. The fact that he had called his son at all made what Bill Mulder had to tell him downright crucial. He never spoke to him--not unless it was urgent.

"I'll be there as soon as I can, Dad," Mulder replied, taking a deep draught of water as he hung up the phone.

* * *

"Mulder?" Dana Scully knocked once more before sliding her key in the lock--loudly this time, hoping to wake him _before_ he pulled a gun on her.

He'd scared her this morning; so angry, so out of control... That wasn't the Fox Mulder she'd come to know. Something was very wrong, and she was sure it had everything to do with that tape he'd shown her.

He wasn't home, and she walked quietly through the living room, wondering worriedly where he'd gone. He was obviously sick, and obviously not himself, and she was worried that he'd get himself in trouble.

The X taped to the window calmed one fear and raised another. He'd called his informant, trying to find out about that tape. Which meant that he was probably at a meeting with the man right now. So he wasn't likely to have run off on his own truth chase quite yet... But given his display with Skinner yesterday, she desperately hoped that he could keep his temper while talking to this "X" character. The large black man didn't seem the type to take a physical attack lying down.

She spied a sheaf of papers sitting on Mulder's desk and leaned forward to look at them, hoping they'd give her a clue to where her partner had gone.

With a shattering of glass, and a very loud noise, she'd slammed back into his couch, landing heavily on the floor.

It took her a moment to identify the reason for her current position, looking amazedly from the hole in the window before her to the hole in the wall behind... And suddenly she realized that her head hurt, that there was something trickling down her forehead from her hairline. With a trembling hand, she reached up and touched her fingers to the blood that the bullet had left behind.

* * *

"We all need a chance to relax sometimes," Bill's wife answered quietly, not a hint of her nervousness displayed for her husband's associate to see.

"Of course we do," the smoker answered blithely. He nodded to the house next door, taking yet another drag on his cigarette. "Who's taking care of the kids?"

Bill Mulder began to sweat, as his wife answered tightly. "Fox is old enough to look after his sister now."

"He _is_ getting older, isn't he?" the smoker replied conversationally. "Certainly old enough to take care of his little sister."

The way he said it made Bill Mulder sick, as he finally realized what the man was trying to say. He took his wife's hand, and began walking past his associate. "Come on, honey," he said, trying to sound normal, for the sakes of the others around him. "Let's go home and check on the kids."

"I'm sure they're fine," the smoker replied, a hard look in his eyes. "And if you leave now, you'll miss dinner."

"I'm not hungry, suddenly," Bill replied, heading for the door.

A large, heavyset young man, with a slow methodical voice, stood in his way. "Jenny's worked hard on this dinner, Bill," he said quietly, an undercurrent of violence to his voice. Bill's wife backed off from him, horrified. "You don't want to disappoint her."

"Besides," the smoker repeated. "You trust Fox to take care of her, don't you?"

The unspoken threat was unmistakable. They'd already given him his choice--his best loved, or everyone. They'd make good on the threat if he left now. And not only would his son be gone, but his wife and daughter as well...

* * *

Tears coursed quietly down Bill Mulder's flushed face as he sat back, hearing the doorbell ring. Running a clumsy hand over his eyes, he rose to answer it.

_Mulder Residence  
Tisbury, Massachusetts_

Mulder was exhausted by the time he reached his father's front door. Whatever bug he'd come down with in the last few days seemed suddenly to be getting worse. With a hand nearly shaking in exhaustion, he pressed the doorbell.

His father had been drinking. Even as sick as he felt, Mulder could recognize the signs. The older man looked at him, with an expression that Mulder couldn't decipher. "Fox."

"Dad," Mulder said quietly, holding out a hand for his standoffish father to shake. He was amazed when Bill Mulder grabbed him, wrapping him in a rough embrace. Something was _very_ wrong here. "What is it, Dad?" Mulder asked, puzzled and worried.

His father released him, looking at him sheepishly. "Come in."

Mulder heard the telltale click as his father locked the door behind them.

"What's so important, Dad?" Mulder asked, sitting heavily on his father's couch. The older man just took a seat in the chair opposite him, pouring himself a bit more scotch and gazing at his son reflectively for a moment before dropping his eyes.

"It's..." Bill Mulder started tentatively. "It's so clear now... Simple!" He sighed. "It was so... complicated then. The choices that had to be made."

"What choices, Dad?" What was wrong here? His father was obviously depressed--though it wasn't like Mulder hadn't seen _that_ before... But this was different somehow... Frightening.

His father looked at him, a strange mixture of pride and regret in his gaze. "You're a smart boy, Fox," he said quietly, rising to walk toward the window. "You're smarter than I ever was."

Mulder wished he had the strength to shout his frustration. "About what?"

Bill Mulder turned from the window, focusing on his first born. Envying him. "Your politics are yours," he explained regretfully. "You've never thrown in. The minute you do that, their doctrines become _yours_ \--and you can be held accountable."

Mulder took a deep breath, sorting through his father's words. "You're talking about your work for the State Department," he guessed.

"You're going to learn things, Fox," his father continued, as if he'd never heard his son's question. "You're going to hear the words.... And they'll come to make sense to you."

"What words?" Mulder tried to get his aching mind to focus on what his father was saying, to leap to the conclusions that it had always been praised for.

He couldn't figure it out.

His father stood before him, watching him, and his voice was desolate. "The merchandise."

The phrase itself seemed to have the power to make the old man crumble, and his eyes closed as he swayed slightly, and his son rose to walk toward him. Whatever was going on, whatever his father was trying to say to him, Fox Mulder knew that he was hurting, and with a weary hand, he reached out and grabbed his father's shoulder, steadying him.

His father smiled wanly. "Look, I, um..." He looked into his son's eyes, not noticing how glazed they looked, and forced a smile. "I've been taking some medication, and, um..." He chuckled self-deprecatingly. "You'll have to excuse me for a moment."

As his father rushed out of the room, Fox Mulder sat heavily on the couch, leaning his aching head back into the cushions. What did "the merchandise" mean? What was it that was making his father so upset--so _frightened_?

It took only a moment for that train of thought to wear him out, and Mulder slipped quietly into a doze.

* * *

"Take care of your sister, Fox," his father had said, a strange look in his eyes. "You're in charge."

"Yes, sir," Fox had replied, looking over at his younger sister, who sat quietly, setting up the Stratego board.

Fox walked across the room, turning on the television--

* * *

A shot rang out, shattering the well-known dream, and leaving Mulder confused.

"Dad?" he called worriedly, rushing for the bathroom.

* * *

Bill Mulder lay still, his brain working feebly as he felt the pressure in his skull increase. He was dying. He could never protect his son now, could never tell him what he needed to know.

Never tell him that _they_ had taken the wrong child...

* * *

Bill sat silently as the charade continued around him. His "friends", his associates, ate quietly, one eye always on him and his wife. It seemed hours before they were allowed to leave.

His wife ran the hundred yards to their house, throwing open the door in haste. Bill followed more slowly. He knew what she'd find, prayed that Samantha hadn't fought them too hard when they'd taken her brother, hoping that they hadn't hurt her, too...

His wife would kill him. He had asked her to help him make the choice, and she had screamed at him, telling him she couldn't choose between them, telling him that she loved them both. She'd gone so far as to ask him to get them to take _her_ instead, but for God's sake, to leave the children alone.

So he had chosen as best he could. He knew she had wanted a daughter that first time, knew that Fox had caused his wife so much trouble...

Knew that he himself loved his baby daughter more than anything.

And so the choice had been simple. Lie. He'd finally given them a name, the name of the child he supposedly loved best--the child they would take from him for "safe-keeping".

He hoped that Samantha was okay. He hoped she hadn't taken it too hard...

"Oh, Fox!" He closed his eyes at the pain in his wife's voice as he neared the door, amazed that she had found out so quickly. But then, it wasn't much later than 8:30. Sam would still have been up when...

He stood, shocked, in the doorway as he opened his eyes, unaware of the cigarette-smoking young man who walked up behind him.

Fox lay in the center of the living room, lit only by the staticky glow of the television. He was curled tightly into a ball, and his mother sat over him crying. All the little boy could do was whisper in a tearful voice, "She's gone... She's gone..."

"You'd better call the police, Bill," the smoking man behind the older Mulder said quietly. "There'll have to be an investigation."

Bill whirled on him, murder in his eyes. "What have you done!"

The man had the presence of mind to look surprised. "You made your choice, Bill."

"But you said you'd take him!" Bill cried, his voice a mere hiss as he watched his wife trying to soothe their son. "You wanted me to pick the one to go!"

The man blew out smoke coolly. "I couldn't take your best loved child from you, Bill," he said calmly. "I couldn't let you sacrifice him."

* * *

Bill could hear a voice suddenly, a voice which, after that cold day, twenty-some years ago, he had always resented, coming to hate the man that that child who'd remained had become. The voice was ragged, full of tears. Full of love.

"Dad?"

Bill Mulder tried to deny what he knew of himself in these last moments of life. He had truly come to hate his son. Perhaps he had always been a little envious of his strange, bright, opinionated young boy. He knew he had been too weak to stand up to the forces that be, and had resented the fact that his son, even at the tender age of twelve, already could. Maybe that was why he'd told _them_ to take him.

Maybe that was why the smoking man had made sure it didn't happen.

And yet, his son loved him. He could hear it in his voice as he called out, could feel it in the tender hands that reached down to cradle a dying old man's head. He wanted to tell Fox how ashamed he was; for choosing Samantha over him, for blaming him when the syndicate had turned against him and taken his little girl instead...

He wanted to tell his son that he loved him.

But in the end, all he could do was whisper two desperate words:

"Forgive me..."

* * *

There were people everywhere, shouting commands, following orders. He could hear the soft susurration of a brush on the edge of the windowsill. He could hear his mother crying, his father railing at someone in a hushed tone...

But Fox Mulder could focus on none of it. All he could do was remember the light, remember his sister as she called for help.

Help he couldn't give her.

"Mr. Mulder?" The voice was crisp, efficient. "Sir, is this your gun?"

The gun... Fox had tried to get to it. He'd tried to stop them... Guilt drove him to a fresh spate of tears, as he whispered so quietly that only his mother could hear him; "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

"Oh, Fox," his mother murmured back, stroking his hair soothingly. "Oh... It wasn't your fault, honey..."

* * *

But it was. And so was this, Mulder thought, as he carried his father's body to the couch, laying him out with grief-driven care. It was all his fault. He shouldn't have let his father out of his sight tonight, just as he shouldn't have let Sam out of his sight on that night twenty-four years ago.

He stared down at his father for a moment, wishing this were all a dream, wishing his dad would open his eyes and laugh, the way he had when Fox was young, and he had played pranks on his brilliant, gullible son...

Mulder straightened up abruptly. He had to talk to someone--to tell someone what had happened. He had to call the police. Get them over here, so that he could find out who had done this...

There weren't a lot of possibilities, he thought hazily. Cancerman... Krycek... Someone else in that goddamned syndicate... Someone who hadn't wanted him to know what his father was trying to tell him...

He had to call the police. They had to be caught. They had to be brought to justice.

Heedless of his own actions, Fox Mulder went to the phone, and dialed.

* * *

Dana Scully looked over the papers before her, trying to get her mind to understand a code that was wholly unfamiliar to it. This tape... This tape held something that she was sure would give them answers...

She just wondered if they were the answers that they'd want to hear.

She was startled by the ringing of her cellphone in the silent rooms of Fox Mulder's tiny apartment. She answered, praying it would be him.

"Scully."

"My father's dead, Scully."

She sucked in a breath. Dear God, he sounded on the edge of exhaustion--on the edge of sanity. "Where are you?"

"They shot him," Mulder continued mindlessly. "And he's dead."

She stood, trying to force herself not to pace. "Mulder, where are you? Just tell me where you are."

There was a long pause, then his dead voice in a sigh. "I'm on the vineyard."

Oh, God... Images of his attack on Skinner, his abortive attack on _her_ earlier that day, flashed through her mind. She clutched at the door frame for support. He'd gone to his father's house...

"Who shot him, Mulder?" she asked carefully.

Again, he paused, his voice barely audible. "I don't know."

"Mulder, were you arguing?" She shut her mind off from the idea that he might say yes.

But he knew what she was trying to say. Somehow, the question had gotten through the haze and anger that had surrounded him the last few days. His sigh this time was sadly amused. "I didn't do it, Scully," he said tearfully. "He was trying to tell me something."

She damned herself for not believing him. But the important thing right now was to get him out of there. Once she had him where she could see him, she had a chance of finding out what the hell had really happened. "Mulder, listen to me--"

Her pause had been too long, and he could hear her accusation in the silence. "You gotta believe me, Scully," he began desperately.

"Mulder, I believe you, just listen to me!" She was sure the lie wasn't believable, but she hoped he was too upset to notice. "You've got to get out of there. You have to leave immediately."

He was a dog with a bone in his teeth, and the petulance of his response frightened her. "I can't leave the crime scene. It'll look like I'm running--like I'm guilty."

Her fear took over. No matter what he'd done, he was her partner, and there had to be a reason for his actions! He would never have hurt his father otherwise. Whatever was happening to him, she had to protect him. "Mulder, they're going to suspect you anyway!" she said, hoping he'd understand, and allowing the paranoid part of her brain to finally speak to her, dispelling her momentary loss of faith in him. "You've--you've got no ID on the shooter... Your behavior has been irrational lately."

She suddenly knew that she _did_ believe him, as she uttered the quiet, pleading words, "Mulder, can't you see that everything is pointing directly at you?"

They were setting him up, she thought, grasping at the door frame so hard now, that she was sure she'd break it. They were turning everyone against him...

Even her...

But Mulder wouldn't give up his own, twisted logic. "He was shot with somebody else's weapon."

"Damnit, Mulder, you're an FBI agent!" she cried angrily. "You have access to weapons other than your own!"

Mulder thought that through in the nerve-wracking silence that followed. Then finally, "All right, meet me back at my apartment."

"No!" she cried instantly, glancing furtively around the empty rooms. Then, more calmly, "No, you can't come home. Somebody shot through your window tonight... They almost killed me. They may be trying to kill you."

She could hear Mulder breathing heavily over the phone for a moment, as she sat in his apartment, waiting for an answer. When it did come, it wasn't at all what she'd come to expect from Mulder.

His voice was more tear-filled than before. "Are you okay?"

She softened, fear still a strong twist in her gut. "I'm okay, Mulder," she assured him comfortingly. "...Did you call the police?"

He had to think about it, and that scared her even more. "Um... I called you..."

"I'll call them, Mulder," she said quietly. "Can you meet me at my apartment?" She wasn't sure she should let him drive all the way from the Vineyard, but she had no other choice right now. He had to get out of the area. "Can you drive?"

"I'll meet you at your apartment, Scully. I'll be there in...." He trailed off for a moment. "I'll be there."

* * *

_Scully Residence  
Alexandria, VA_

Scully paced, waiting for something. Part of her waited for a call from the police--any police. Mulder had been apprehended at the scene, rushed off to jail to await sentencing on a murder he didn't commit--a murder he was in no mental condition to defend himself from.

Or he had crashed somewhere on the highway, his grief and his... condition? ...causing him to lose control as he drove toward sanctuary...

Mostly what she waited for was the knock on her door that would tell her he'd gotten safely this far--she'd worry about what happened next later.

She'd stopped at a gas station on her way back to her apartment, using the payphone to call the police in Tisbury. An anonymous tip. She closed her eyes, sinking into her couch, wishing that he were there, that she could figure out a way to help him.

* * *

"Mrs. Mulder, I'm sorry, but we have to question him." Fox heard desperation in the voice. "We've had no leads on your daughter's whereabouts, and Fox is the only witness to her kidnapping."

"He just got home from the hospital, officer," Fox's mother replied. Even through the walls and up the stairs, he could tell she'd started crying again. "He's in no condition to answer your questions."

"I understand that he's having a great deal of trouble with this, Mrs. Mulder--"

"And why shouldn't he!" His mother suddenly cried out. "His baby sister is _gone_!"

Fox started crying again at that. Samantha was gone... He was in charge! He should have stopped them. Instead, he told himself disgustedly, all he'd done was curl up into a little ball and blubber like a baby.

* * *

Which somehow seemed less cowardly than what he was doing now, Mulder thought bitterly, as he drove toward Scully's apartment.

When Sam was taken, he'd been a young boy, not even in his teens. While part of him would always blame himself for what had happened, part of him was well aware that a twelve-year-old would have had no way of stopping the abduction. But now, he was an adult... An FBI agent. He should have stayed with his father's body, explaining to the police what had happened. He should be out right now, trying to catch his father's killer...

But he was _so_ sick! He knew he shouldn't be driving, knew he should be... in a hospital... under a doctor's care... Something...

But Scully _was_ a doctor, he thought hazily, parking unsteadily in front of her apartment. She was his own personal doctor. She'd help him find the truth. She'd help him find the killer. If he could just make it up the stairs to her apartment, he'd be safe. He'd be able to find the killer if she helped him.

As he reached her door, he suddenly remembered what she had said to him on the phone hours ago: "They almost killed me."

Like they'd killed his father. Like they'd taken his sister. He knocked heavily, waiting the painful seconds while she answered the door, falling gratefully into her arms, convincing himself that she was there.

And that she'd help him.

* * *

"Oh, Mulder! Thank God!" Scully bore his weight carefully as her lanky partner all but fell into her arms. In his unsteady embrace, she could feel the heat coming off of him. She put a cool, gentle hand to his forehead. "Look at you, you're sick!"

"I'm all right," he said, moving with the deliberation of a drunkard to her armchair, still a hand around her waist. "I'm okay."

Scully grabbed him with both arms, trying to stop him from sitting down. "No," she cajoled quietly. "Come on, I want you to lie down. NO!--" She pulled him bodily out of the chair, repeating, "I want you to lie down." She grabbed at the zipper on his jacket, which his clumsy hands were reaching for. "Let me take your coat off."

Suspicion welled up in her again, as she saw the amount of blood that had soaked into his shirt. She tamped it down hard, reminding herself of just how devious these people could be--and just what lengths they'd go to to conceal the truth.

"We gotta find 'em, Scully!" he cried, exhausted, as she tried to lead him into her bedroom.

"Well, right now, you have to lie down... Come on."

He sat on the bed with little prompting, but getting him to lie down was a greater problem. She finally took his head in her hand, laying him flat on the mattress, as she comfortingly ran a hand through his hair. She stood looking down at him for a moment, before going off to get something to try to bring his fever down.

"We gotta find out who killed my father!"

He was up, though shakily, as she rushed back into the room, and she forced him down once again, a doctor's firmness in her voice, though all he heard were shadows of his mother's care... "Well, right now, you need to rest, okay? ...Rest."

Lying on the bed, a cool washcloth gracing his forehead, Fox Mulder allowed himself to feel just how tired he really was. He sighed hugely as Scully murmured to him in a soothing tone that reminded him of that night.

"It's okay... It's okay..."

* * *

"Fox, honey?" She ran her hand through his hair again, tears dropping heedlessly from her face to his. "It's okay..."

How could she say it was okay? Dad had left him in charge, and he'd failed. He was supposed to take care of his sister!

"Mrs. Mulder?" The voice was quiet, caring, but Fox was beyond its comfort. "Do you... do you want to call an ambulance? Your son..."

"I'll take care of my son!" His mother cried tearfully, holding his head in a fierce, protective embrace.

"Maybe you should get him some help." This other voice was suave, slick. Fox had heard it before, but he couldn't remember where...

It made him think of the sea, though all he could smell were cigarettes.

"Please, dear." His father. Oh, he was going to kill him! He'd told Fox to take care of his sister, and look what had happened! His father's voice drifted away slightly. "Officer? My son needs... My wife wants to take him to the hospital."

"Of course," another voice replied, a subtle suspicion in it. At least _this_ man knew that Fox was to blame. "Mrs. Mulder, we'll want a copy of the hospital's report... And we'll want to question him later."

* * *

Scully woke from a fitful doze to find her partner fidgeting in the bed before her. Rising out of her chair, she went to him, a hand to his still burning forehead.

"I didn't do anything!" he cried out pitifully, his voice that of a scared little boy. It pulled at her heartstrings as he dove further below the surface of his dream. "Please! Please! I didn't _do_ anything!"

That was enough. She shook him lightly, then harder as he failed to rouse. Just as she began to fear that something was truly, life-threateningly, wrong, his eyes came painfully open, letting loose the tears that his lids had hidden.

"Mulder," she called softly, waiting for his eyes to slide toward her and focus on her face. "Can you sit up for a minute?"

He nodded drowsily, though he still needed her help to rise. She patted him carefully on the arm, and all but ran to the bathroom, grabbing a glass of water and three aspirin. As an afterthought, she grabbed her thermometer as well.

"Drink this," she prompted quietly, as he looked blankly at the glass in her hand. She added the aspirin to the equation, and watched as he downed them, draining the glass as if he hadn't had a drop to drink in days.

He dropped the glass to his lap after a moment, staring through her. "He was trying to tell me something, Scully," he said finally. "They wouldn't let him tell me... I'll never know what he wanted to _tell_ me!"

Scully forced him to lie down again, sliding the thermometer in his mouth and watching him carefully. He wasn't just sick... It had to be more than that. She'd seen him almost dead. She'd seen him with the flu. She'd seen him at his worst and at his best...

But she'd never seen him like this.

"Mulder, please try to sleep," she pleaded softly. "I'll be right here, I promise..."

With a tear-filled sigh, Fox Mulder gave in again to sleep...

* * *

It was a week before Fox could speak, another before he could hold a conversation.

Stress, the doctors said. Stress, and grief, and...

"Mrs. Mulder?" The doctor had closed the door, in deference to the seemingly sleeping boy in the hospital room, but Fox could hear every word he said. "Have you... Has your son ever had any problems--before this?"

"No!" His mother sounded dutifully upset by the accusation. "No, he's always been a normal child! How could you even think that..."

"I don't mean any offense, ma'am," the doctor replied quickly. "It's just... I've never seen a child respond quite like this and frankly... I'm concerned."

You've never seen a child who lost his little sister before, Fox thought bitterly, his self-recrimination overwhelming him again. He tried not to cry, tried not to let his mother know he was awake, but a sniffle escaped him nonetheless, and she was at his bedside in a shot.

"Fox, honey?" She reached a hand out to his forehead, soothing him, her skin cool against the flame his tears had fanned. "It's okay... I'm right here, honey..."

Fox gazed past her, looking blankly out the door, and froze, as he saw his father looking in. At the stricken look on his son's face, Bill Mulder tried to smile comfortingly, but Fox knew it was a lie.

He knew his father blamed him for the loss of his baby girl...

And he knew his father hated him, because it should have been _him_ that was taken...

* * *

Mulder woke slowly, aware that his head was a little less clouded than it had been. With a shock, though, all that had happened the night before came back to him.

His father was dead. And he _had_ to find the killer...

And Scully was here, to help him.

"Scully?" He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, aware suddenly that he was alone. Best to get dressed and try to start finding the killer on his own.

He grabbed his jeans from their place at the end of the bed, and looked at his holster.

His gun was gone.

* * *

Dana Scully watched the forensics expert fire Mulder's gun into the ballistics box, trying not to fidget. She shouldn't have left Mulder alone this morning. His fever had broken around six-fifteen, but until she knew what was _really_ wrong with him, she was afraid of what he might do. Well, there was nothing she could have done about it. As soon as she was done with this, she'd get back to her house to check on him.

Hopefully he could give her a little more information before this afternoon.

She looked up as the man before her put down Mulder's gun and moved to the other end of the room.

"I'll run a comparison as soon as they send me the bullet removed from the victim," he told her calmly, extracting the spent bullets from the box.

"How long will it take to determine if they're a match?" She wanted to make sure she had _something_ to give Skinner at that meeting this afternoon. Otherwise, he'd have Mulder taken into custody without a second thought.

The man before her shrugged. "Well, they're both nine millimeter. We'll run the specs, compare the striae... We should know pretty much right away."

Thank God. Scully nodded politely to him, a little startled by the ringing of her phone. Great. Skinner was calling to tell her he'd moved up the meeting again. When he'd called this morning, he'd said to meet him in his office at three-fifteen, then, later, it was two-thirty. Now what was it going to be? Immediately?

"Scully."

Mulder's voice surprised her, both with its vehemence, and its very presence on the line. She'd have thought he'd still be asleep, considering the night he'd had. "You took my gun," he accused quietly. "You think I did it, don't you?"

She tried to be patient. "I took your gun to run it through ballistics to try to clear you, Mulder."

"Then why didn't you _ask_ me?"

"You had a temperature of 102 last night. I didn't want to wake you."

"What?" he asked cruelly. "Were you afraid I was going to shoot you, too?"

Given the last twenty-four hours, Dana Scully had finally had enough. "Mulder, I'm being called into Skinner's office this afternoon. They're going to want answers, and I'd like some good ones to give them."

His next words hurt--more than she wanted to admit. "So you can clear your conscience and your name? You've been making reports on me from the beginning, Scully. Taking your little notes!"

She pushed the thought of his words away. The faint ring of truth they held was too much for her to deal with right now. "Mulder, you're sick," she said plaintively. "You're not thinking straight. I'm on your side, you _know_ that."

He turned even colder suddenly. "You have my files and you have my gun--don't _ask_ me for my trust!"

"Mul--" Scully cursed silently as he hung up on her.

* * *

Mulder paced in Scully's apartment for ten minutes, trying to calm himself down, trying to figure out what to do next.

She'd said he couldn't go back to his apartment... Of course, she'd also taken his gun... his trust.

To Hell with her. He'd go back to his apartment, try to contact X again, try to get some idea of why they had killed his father.

That thought made him sink wearily into her couch. His father. What had he been trying to tell him last night? The evening was so damn hazy now. He couldn't think well enough to put together _any_ of the clues that their abortive discussion might have given him.

He realized suddenly that it was harder to get off the couch than it should have been. He needed to eat. When you were sick, you needed to eat--it was something his mother had taught him nearly twenty-five years ago...

* * *

"Fox, please, honey." His mother's voice was quiet, sad. She was crying again. He tried to make his eyes track up to meet hers, but they just didn't have the will.

"Won't you just eat a little, Fox?" She'd tried everything to get him to eat. He'd heard the doctors whispering about putting him on an IV soon, if he didn't eat.

But he couldn't. The thought of food made him sick. _Any_ thought made him sick, actually. Because every thought led back to Samantha...

"Dear?" His father's voice did finally prompt his eyes to move from their focus on the blanket before him. His father's eyes were bloodshot, cold, recriminating. He blamed his son for his daughter's loss.

Which was just as well, Fox thought bitterly, his eyes dropping again to his hands in his lap. Because it _was_ his fault. He couldn't help thinking that everything would be so much better for them if _he_ had been taken instead of Samantha.

"Dear," his father repeated. "The doctor wants to speak with us."

Fox was vaguely aware of his father's hands as they closed around his mother's shoulders, pulling her up to stand next to him. She leaned over to her son briefly, the kiss she planted on his forehead burning him like a brand. "I'll be back in a minute, Fox."

He hoped she'd never come back. Just leave him to rot in this hospital, let her and Dad get on with their lives...

"Mrs. Mulder." Fox could hear the doctor talking through the door, sounding worried. "We... we need to think about putting your son on IV nutrients, Mrs. Mulder. He simply will not eat, and, in his mental condition..."

Fox smiled meanly as the doctor trailed off. Mental condition. Ha. As he retreated deeper and deeper into himself, Fox was beginning not to have a mental condition at all.

Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd soon disappear completely...

* * *

Mulder sat down abruptly in the taxi's back seat, hardly remembering that he had called them, or that he had walked down the stairs from the apartment building to meet them. The heavy-set man in the driver's seat turned toward him questioningly. "Where to?"

"The Park in D.C.," Mulder replied dully. He'd have to wait until dark to go back to his apartment. It wouldn't be safe in the daylight.

And right now, he wanted to be alone. He needed to think. He needed to try to figure out what his father had been trying to tell him.

* * *

Mulder had been gone by the time Scully got back to her apartment. She'd looked around, noticing that he'd taken what little he'd brought with him last night, and that he'd devoured an entire box of corn flakes, leaving a bowl half full of milk on the kitchen table. Damnit! Where did he go? In his condition, he could have gone _anywhere!_

She sighed as she locked the door behind her. At least the ballistics report showed that it hadn't been Mulder's gun that had killed his father. That made her breathe a little easier. She was more sure than ever that Mulder was being set up. And that that set up was good enough that he was somehow systematically setting everyone against himself.

Why was he acting this way? She'd seen him in his more paranoid moments, and admitted to herself that he wasn't really all that different in those times than he was being now. Cruel, hazy, distrustful...

Still, she couldn't help thinking, as she drove up to his apartment building in the oncoming twilight, that he was somehow different than he had been. Something was changing him...

And she shuddered to think at what that might be.

* * *

Mulder wasn't home. Somehow, though she hoped he would be, she wasn't terribly surprised. With tired hands, Scully pulled out her pocketknife, and started digging the slug out of his wall.

It was big, she thought dispassionately. Big enough that it could easily have killed her, had it hit her just centimeters lower in the forehead. She drove her thoughts fiercely away from that contemplation, and stood down from the chair she'd used to reach the bullet, looking around the room. The desk was still in disarray, just as it had been when she'd left here last night...

Or was it? Had the papers there been moved? She looked at them carefully, trying to remember....

And that was when she saw the van. It was unmarked, which couldn't be considered _too_ usual in Alexandria. What _was_ unusual, was the fact that the man walking toward it was rolling a soft water canister behind him. She couldn't see any labels on _that,_ either.

Her thoughts about Mulder's recent behavior coupled with this image, and she suddenly had an idea--a frightening idea, to be sure, but...

* * *

The closet that held the building's service tanks wasn't difficult to find, and she made her way down to the basement quickly. Flashlight in hand, she groped through the darkened room, looking for the row of canisters.

She ran the light over them thoughtfully, until the beam came to rest on a shiny, brand new hose unit--with an unmarked tank attached to it...

* * *

Mulder had waited until dusk to catch another cab from the park to his apartment. He hoped that by that time, it would be safe to attempt to contact X.

He was wrong, he realized, as he turned the corner toward the outside stairway, catching sight of a shadow moving through the bushes.

He walked to the stairs, bursting into a run as he reached them, and not stopping until he'd gone through to the back exit of his building. Breathing hard, he reached the corner of the building, glancing quickly around it to catch sight of Alex Krycek sneaking along the wall toward him.

He reached for his gun, and cursed silently. The spy had taken it. So be it. Right now, he'll gladly beat this son of a bitch to death with his bare hands!

Like a good little FBI agent, Alex Krycek let his gun lead him around the building's corner. With a fierce cry, Mulder was all over him. It took only a few frenzied second for Mulder to grab Krycek's gun. He could have shot him then, but he wanted answers--and he wanted revenge.

Krycek did his best to fight Mulder off, but the older agent seemed to have the strength of a man twice his size, and Krycek landed painfully against the trunk of a car, with Mulder's arm at his neck, and his own gun in his face.

"I'm gonna kill you anyway, Krycek, so you may as well tell me the truth," Mulder gritted angrily. "Did you kill my father?"

* * *

Scully walked up the stairs from the basement, trying to decide what to do next. Find Mulder, obviously. But the question there was how? She had no idea where he'd gone to, and given his current disposition, she was fairly sure he wouldn't be forthcoming if she called.

Her decision was made for her as she walked up the stairs toward the back entrance, heading for her car.

"Did you kill him?" Mulder's voice was rough, as if he'd been running--or fighting. "Answer me!!"

Scully ran the remaining steps to street level, dropping the bag of evidence she'd discovered, as she drew her gun.

Alex Krycek lay on the ground, and Scully watched in amazement as her partner kicked him viciously, before dragging him to his feet and pushing him against the car they stood behind.

That was when she saw the gun in Mulder's hand.

"Mulder!" she called, frightened suddenly. "Don't shoot him!" She hoped her voice held at least a bit of its usual authority, because the only way she'd get Mulder to obey her was if he did it out of instinct. "Just back away!"

He did, but only so that he could get a firm, two-handed grip on his weapon. "He killed my father, Scully!"

"I have him!"

"No, Scully!"

She could see Mulder's finger tightening on the trigger, and knew that, sick as it was, there was only one way to stop him.

Dana Scully took a quick, deep breath, and fired.

Mulder hit the ground hard, the back of his head grazing the wall behind him as he went down. With a terrified, wild look in his eyes, Krycek glanced quickly at Scully, and ran like a bat out of hell.

But Scully couldn't care less. She knelt beside her partner, looking frantically for a pulse, trying to decide how badly she'd hurt him.

Her head shot up suddenly, as she heard a terrified woman's voice, coming from within a nearby apartment.

"Somebody call the police!"

* * *

Scully sat down, exhausted. The shot had been one of her best--clean through the soft tissue in his shoulder. No broken bones, no damage to his lung...

She willed herself to stop shaking.

Looking around the motel room vaguely, her eyes fell on the phone. She had to get some sort of plan together. She had to get him somewhere where he'd be safe, until she could figure out something...

She was startled by the ringing of her cellphone.

"Scully," she answered carefully.

"Miss Scully?" The voice was slow, old... She tried to place the accent, but failed. "This is Albert Hosteen. I was contacted by a friend in Washington..." He seemed puzzled by her silence. He'd have been more puzzled still, had he seen the tears of relief that had suddenly sprung to her eyes. "You spoke to her about some files?"

"Yes, Mr. Hosteen," Scully finally replied, clearing her throat. "Where are you?"

"If you can meet me at the Adobe Hotel in Farmington, I will take a look at your files."

Scully almost smiled. New Mexico was, very likely, the _last_ place they would ever think to look for her-- _or_ Mulder. "That would be fine, Mr. Hosteen," she said calmly. "I'll be driving... Can you meet me..." She looked over at her partner, and the fresh dressing on his wound. "On second thought, can you give me your phone number? I'll call you when I get there."

* * *

The next forty-two hours were likely the longest that Dana Scully would ever endure. Her first stop was at the training facility in Quantico, where she snuck in to steal what she'd need for the trip. Okay, she told herself, as she stuck the vials of sedative and antibiotic in her bag, so it wasn't technically stealing. They _were_ being used for legitimate medical purposes, on a federal agent--albeit, one who was currently under investigation for murder. One who was about to be transported illegally over state lines...

She shut off that thought process as she returned to her car, where Mulder was just starting to come around. Soundlessly, she primed a syringe--another of the booties in her theft--and injected a liberal amount of tranquilizers into him. With a light groan, Mulder was under again--would hopefully stay that way, at least until she was in the next state.

It was four-thirty in the morning, and she was already in Illinois, before she felt it safe to stop. She was exhausted, but she knew she'd never be able to haul him into a motel room by herself. So she caught an hour's nap in the uncomfortable confines of her driver's seat.

She stopped five more times on her way to New Mexico, twice for gas and food, and three times--always on long stretches of deserted highway--to try to catch a few minute's sleep. She kept Mulder under for the entire trip, giving him a final injection of sedative as she reached Santa Fe. If she was right about what had been in that soft water canister, he'd need the time to let the drugs get out of his system.

And, in truth, she was too tired to try to make him stay put, if the drugs were to convince him otherwise.

* * *

The Adobe was easy to find--Farmington being a small town--and it was nearly ten pm when she drove into the parking lot. Getting out of her car, she noticed a young Indian lounging around outside the manager's office.

"Miss Scully?" the boy asked as she approached. She rubbed her elbow unconsciously against her hip, comforting herself with the felt presence of her sidearm.

"Yes?"

"My name is Eric," he said, reaching out a hand. "I'm Albert Hosteen's grandson." He looked into the night at her car. "Is he okay?"

She was a little amazed that he could see Mulder in the dark from this distance. "He's sick."

Eric nodded disinterestedly. "They'll give you room 135," he said quietly, holding out his hand. "I'll help your friend in."

With a distrustful stare, Scully shook her head. "No, thank you."

Eric simply nodded again, going back to lounging by the door.

Keeping an eye on him, Scully walked in to the office. She wasn't surprised when the manager presented her with the key to room 135--along with the key to the adjoining room. With a bemused look, Scully paid him in advance, and walked out--

\--to find Eric standing by her car, watching her.

"How did you know I would be here tonight?" she asked, finally letting exhaustion take over from her suspicion.

Eric shrugged. "This is how long it takes to get from Washington to Farmington--if you don't stop."

Scully finally smiled. Maybe, for now, she and Mulder might actually be safe.

Eric helped her carry Mulder into one of the rooms, and stood at the door, staring at her as she fussed over her partner. He smiled as she finally looked up at him. "You haven't slept," the young man observed.

"I'll be okay."

"My grandfather told me to take care of you," Eric said simply. "He said you would be in trouble when you got here. You need to sleep."

Scully looked at him wordlessly for a moment. His _grandfather_ had told him? How had the old man known?

"Where is your grandfather?"

"In bed--where you should be." Eric smiled again as Scully grimaced. "I will look after him. You should sleep."

In the face of such logic, Scully thought sarcastically, how can I refuse? And the boy felt like he was safe--in fact, she felt safer than she had since Mulder had found that damn tape...

With a sigh and a tired smile, Scully grabbed her bag and headed for the room next door, leaving the connecting door comfortingly open.

* * *

Scully was in the shower twenty minutes before she truly felt clean. Two and a half days was a long time to go without a shower--or a bed, she thought gratefully as she pulled on her pajamas and opened the bathroom door, looking longingly at the single bed before her.

Still, she couldn't help worrying about Mulder, and she walked quietly to the door that led to his room, peeking in carefully.

Mulder lay where she and Eric had left him, never moving in his drug-induced sleep. Eric sat in a chair beside the bed, a book in his hand. He looked up at her, the ghost of a smile still on his face. With a returning ghost, Scully turned from the door, dropping onto to the firm, smooth bed.

She was asleep within minutes.

* * *

"Fox?" The officer's voice was warm, caring. He was young, Fox saw, as his vague eyes floated up to the man's face. "Fox, can you answer a few questions for me? About your sister?"

Fox nodded. He was too tired now for tears. He hadn't eaten since the night his sister disappeared, and even the nutrients they were giving him through a tube in his arm weren't enough to make him feel strong. For a long while after that night, he'd slept, mostly. But, when he slept, he dreamed--so eventually, he stopped doing that, too.

He'd always been good at convincing his parents that he was asleep. It was a trick he'd taught Samantha, too. Breathe really regularly (he'd laughed at her when he'd had to tell her what 'regularly' meant), and don't turn over, and after a couple of checks, they'd think you were asleep. He and Sam had spent nights and nights sitting up, Fox whispering ghost stories to his little sister. Even when he gave her nightmares--nightmares that would wake their parents from a sound sleep--she never told on him. The TV show she'd watched had been scary, or someone at school had told a scary story...

She'd never ratted on him...

"Fox?" The officer had been saying something, Fox realized suddenly.

"What?"

The officer patted Fox's knee reassuringly. "Look, Fox... Why don't I come by later, huh?" He smiled winningly at the little boy in the hospital bed. "Why don't you get some sleep?"

Fox just nodded dully, and his eyes followed the young man out of his room. As the officer started talking to his father outside, Fox wondered that none of them thought to close the door all the way. Didn't they know that he could hear every word they were saying?

"What did he say?" Fox shuddered slightly at the anger in his father's voice.

"He's... not really in the mood to talk, Mr. Mulder," the officer replied gently. "I'll come back later today."

"But..."

"He's already told us that he doesn't remember what happened that night--"

"And I'm sure he's telling the truth." This latest voice sounded like the doctor who'd been taking care of him since he got here. Doctor Anderson. "These sorts of trauma are very difficult on children, Mr. Mulder. Your son seems to have blocked out the entire evening. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to check on Fox..."

Fox looked away from the door as Dr. Anderson walked in. "Hey, Fox," the tall man said gently. "How are you feeling?"

Fox shrugged, still trying to listen to the people talking just outside. Anderson had closed the door all the way when he came in, so the young boy could only catch snatches of what was being said.

"Dragged the river..."

"...ransom note?"

"...bodies in the area morgues..."

Fox started to cry, heedless of the man standing before him.

"Fox," Anderson said gently. "I know this is hard on you... But hang in there, okay?" The man smiled comfortingly. "It'll all turn out right..."

* * *

Mulder rolled slightly in his sleep, groaning as he rolled onto his newly-bandaged shoulder. He felt a gentle hand force him back onto his back, and muttered quietly in his sleep.

"It's okay," he heard a voice say. Somehow, though he knew it couldn't be the case, he heard it as his mother's. "I'm right here...."

Yes, he thought drowsily. Right there... Where she's supposed to be.

* * *

"How is he?" Eric asked as he walked back into the motel room, a bag of donuts and a cup of coffee in his hand. A tall, broad, old man walked behind him, and Eric put his burdens on the desk and brought his companion forward to introduce him. "This is my grandfather."

"It's good to meet you, Mr. Hosteen. Thank you for your hospitality--and your grandson's."

"Albert, please," the man replied, moving closer to the bed, and repeating his grandson's question. "How is he?"

Scully stood, stretching her sore back. "He's doing better. The sedative I gave him last night should be wearing off soon." She took the coffee with a smile to Eric, sipping at it gratefully as she gazed at her partner. "Albert... How did you know we were coming?"

"You called," he replied simply, though she could see from the twinkle in his eyes that he wasn't coming clean.

"So you had your grandson sit outside the motel until we just _happened_ to show up?"

"We have had omens," the old man replied quietly. "I knew that you would be coming."

"Why?"

Albert's eyes had a strange glow to them, the kind of glow that Scully always saw in her partner's eyes when he was in the hunt.

"To find the truth."

* * *

Scully didn't know if her hands would ever stop shaking. This couldn't be happening. She had had Albert start with the most recent files, hoping to find _something_ that might explain what was happening.

What he had found was terrifying, and Scully was desperately afraid that it might be enough to bring her world crashing down.

Albert watched the young lady as she rose and got another cup of coffee. Eric had come by with some sandwiches earlier in the day, but hers remained untouched. She spent her time reading over the files he had already translated, only occasionally rising to grab a cup of coffee, or to sit worriedly beside her still-sleeping partner.

It was obvious to the old man that Mulder had slept far longer than she had expected him to. It had been early morning when Albert and his grandson came to the motel, and as the afternoon wore on, the young lady seemed to grow more and more distressed. With a sigh for his old bones, Albert walked past her and leaned over the young man lying on the bed.

* * *

Fox awoke, nine days after his sister's disappearance, to find himself in a strange room. He didn't recognize it for what it was, didn't realize that the IV attached to his arm should have told him that he was in a hospital. The last week and more were a blank, and Fox could only think of one thing.

He had to find Samantha.

It didn't hurt to rip out the IV in his arm. He never felt the blood trickling down to his wrist. With shaking, fast-weakened legs, Fox drew himself out of bed and hobbled crookedly toward the door, throwing it open as he walked through.

He had to find Samantha. He had no idea why it was so important, but he knew he needed to see her, to pull on her braids, to hear her whine at him.

She had to be somewhere, he thought dully, as he walked slowly from room to room, stumbling occasionally, grabbing at the wall for support. She had to be somewhere...

"Fox?" The voice was only vaguely familiar, and Fox didn't even bother to look up to identify the face. He had to find Samantha. As soft hands tried to stop his forward progress, the young boy finally pulled away and tried to run.

The stairwell was close. He burst through the door, hobbling desperately down the stairs as that voice called worriedly after him. He didn't care what _they_ wanted. He _had_ to find Samantha!

The stair was the same as all the others--short, cement, a small ridge of metal at the edge--but this one was too much for his unsteady legs, and he felt himself falling forward, detached from the pain as he landed on his cheek, half a flight below.

He welcomed the darkness that followed.

Maybe here, he could find Samantha...

* * *

Fox Mulder woke to see his father's face; old, as it had been when he last saw him, not the young man whose worried visage had greeted him in the hospital, when he'd awakened from that fall. This face was old, wrinkled, yellow in the eyes, blushed with alcohol in the cheeks. Mulder wanted to talk to him...

But suddenly, it wasn't his father anymore. It was another man, an Indian, his face lined and kindly, his voice, when he spoke, slow and gentle.

"He's awake."

Mulder stared up blearily, exhausted. After a moment, a familiar face swam into view.

Why was that face familiar?

"Mulder?" The woman asked quietly, catching his vague eyes and holding them. "Mulder, it's me."

Mulder nodded slightly. "It's me." Scully.

Satisfied, Scully put something cool in his hands. "Here, drink some of that. You haven't had any water in over thirty-six hours."

Thirty-six hours? What exactly had happened here? He remembered waking in her apartment, their argument, the park... He'd gone back to his _own_ apartment...

Krycek...

Mulder tried to sit up, gasping painfully at the pull on his shoulder.

Scully settled a pillow behind his back, her voice a professional one--a doctor's voice. "Your shoulder's going to be fine. The round went through nice and clean."

He glared at her in disbelief. "You _shot_ me!"

"Yes," she replied, irritated. "I did. You didn't give me much choice... You were about to kill Krycek."

Mulder didn't understand. "Why'd you shoot _me_? He's the one!"

"If he is," Scully replied patiently. "Then his weapon is probably the same one that killed your father."

"What are you talking about?"

Scully took a deep breath, spelling it out for him carefully. "If you killed Krycek with that weapon, there would've been no way to prove that _you_ didn't kill your father." She watched him as the sense of her words sunk in, and as the pain of his father's death hit him once again.

"I'm sorry about your father, Mulder," she said tenderly. "I haven't been able to tell you."

Mulder sat silently, his brain trying to kick into gear. He felt so foggy. Like when he'd been a boy, and the police had tried to question him...

"How'd you know it was Krycek?" he asked finally, sounding very much like that little boy in a hospital room.

"I didn't," Scully sighed, rising to walk to a nearby table. "I went back to your apartment to pull the slug from the wall. But I noticed an unmarked van delivering soft water." She presented him with a small cylinder, wrapped in an evidence bag, and he somehow got the idea that she expected him to know what it was. "And I found _this_ in one of the tanks servicing your building."

"What is it?" Mulder finally asked.

"It's a dialysis filter. It's a device used in the transmission of substances to solution." Her voice was suddenly sad. "Considering the level of psychosis you were experiencing, it was possibly LSD, amphetamines, or some kind of exotic dopamine agonist."

The haze in his mind was finally starting to clear. "Oh my God... There was a murder in my building..."

Scully looked down at him candidly. "Well, it wasn't an exercise in subtlety." She sat down, leaning forward anxiously, hoping that he'd finally begun to see the danger they were up against. "Mulder, these men are quite possibly the same ones who killed your father and who systematically tried to destroy you by turning everyone you could trust against you." She softened as she saw his eyes clear. "I don't think I have to tell you why."

"I'd gotten too close to the truth," he replied quietly. Now that he was completely awake, he realized that he had no idea where he was; no idea who the old man at the table by the window was. "Where are we?"

"We're in Farmington, New Mexico."

"New Mexico?"

Scully nodded tiredly. "We've just driven two days across-country. I had to put you out to let the side-effects of the psychosis abate." She looked up as the old man approached them. "This is Albert Hosteen. He's been translating your files."

The old man looked down at Mulder, his smile benign. "You're lucky she's a good shot."

Mulder looked at the bandage that covered his shoulder. "Or a bad one," he replied, a tentative smile for his partner.

Scully returned it with relief. "Albert was a Navajo code-talker during World War II. He helped encode the original documents."

"How did you find him?"

"Through a woman in D.C.," Scully replied, looking up again as Albert moved toward the door. "But he claims that he knew we were coming."

Albert looked back at them as he opened the door. "Last week, we had an omen."

Mulder nodded solemnly, watching as the old man left.

"Most of these files are written in jargon," Scully explained. "But apparently there was an international conspiracy dating back to the 1940s. Albert says that evidence of these secrets are buried on the reservation not far from here. He'll take you as soon as you're able."

Mulder nodded again, shrugging his shoulder to see how bad the pain was. He decided immediately that he wouldn't be shrugging it again any time soon. With a grunt, he rolled up to sit on the edge of the bed, facing his partner. "What about you?" he asked quietly.

"I'm afraid you're on your own with this," she replied nervously. "I didn't show up for a meeting with Skinner day before yesterday. I don't know what the repercussions will be."

He watched her for a moment, seeing her fear reflected in her down-turned eyes. "You've taken a big risk," he said in a whisper.

Scully's eyes came up to meet his, and he was surprised to see that their fear was for him. Not her job, not herself... him.

"I was certain they would have killed you, Mulder," she replied quietly.

Mulder placed a hand in her lap, stilling the trembling of his partner's hands, before rising and heading to the bathroom. He could still smell his father's blood on his skin...

He wondered if he always would.

Scully hadn't moved since he'd risen, and he turned to her now, his voice gentle. "Thank you... Thank you for taking care of me."

He noticed that her hands were shaking again as she rose. "There's something else," she said, sounding on the verge of tears. "My name is in those files. It appears in the latest entries, along with Duane Barry's."

Mulder stared at her in shock. "In what context?"

"It's not clear." She was trying not to let it get to her, he decided, watching her hands as they tortured each other. "But it has something to do with a test. I want you to find out, Mulder." Her voice was pleading, tear-filled. "I _need_ you to."

He nodded to her, holding her eyes for a moment. "Are you okay?"

She tried to crack a smile. It very nearly cracked his heart. "I'm fine," she said finally, shaking her head in an attempt to diffuse the tension. "You'd better take a shower before you go out to the reservation," she told him blithely, moving to tidy up the room. "The coyotes will smell you coming."

He grinned at her lopsidedly before going into the bathroom.

Only when she heard the shower start up did Scully allow herself relief. She dropped onto the bed, still warm from Mulder's slumber, and cried.

* * *

"I... I really am sorry, Mrs. Mulder." The man had the grace to sound remorseful. "The case will be kept open, of course, but..."

Fox shivered in his bed, as he heard his father's tired, rumbling voice. "Thank you, Lieutenant Harcourt. You'll let us know if...?"

"Of course, sir." The lieutenant, who Fox remembered as a tall, willowy young man, seemed to hesitate for a moment. "Your son, Fox? How is he?"

There was a long, long pause; time enough for Fox's father to say something caring, something reassuring...

In the end, it was his mother who answered.

"He's... doing better, thank you."

"He seems like a good kid, Mrs. Mulder," Harcourt replied gently. "I'm so sorry that this had to happen.. to all of you."

Fox tuned out as his parents played the gracious hosts, and saw Lieutenant Harcourt to the door. He still wondered if this wasn't all his fault. There had to have been something he could have done to stop... it.

His mother had tried to tell him, time and again in the last three months, that it wasn't his fault...

But his father knew the truth. And every time Fox looked into those cold, accusing eyes--eyes that had once been gentle and loving-- _he_ knew it, too.

* * *

Mulder tried to wash the sight of his father's dead eyes from his mind, as he turned the hot water up to its highest setting. His throbbing arm protested, but he couldn't have cared less. He couldn't let these memories--couldn't let his grief--keep him frozen in this room while the truth was out there.

With a sigh, he switched off the water, stepping out of the shower and rubbing at the mirror that his bathing had covered with steam. His face was haggard in the foggy light of the bathroom, the angry wound on his shoulder a flaming red from the scalding rinse he'd given it. He avoided his image's eyes, dreading the pain that he might find there--fearing that it might his father's ghost, and not himself, who gazed back.

Groaning at the pain it caused, he drew on his bathrobe, and headed for the door. Scully, it seemed, had been as thorough as always, even as she made a mad dash from D.C. She had gone back to his apartment, he saw, as he exited the bathroom, and had taken the overnight bag that he always had ready for their frequent forays into the unknown.

"Scully?" he called carefully, as he leaned down, wincing at the increase of blood flowing toward his injured shoulder, and took the bag in his good hand, laying it gently on the bed. He looked around, slightly lost, until he saw the connecting door to the next room, standing open, and heard the soft sounds of a shower being run.

He dressed quickly, running a tired hand through his already-drying hair, and sat silently on the edge of the bed for a moment.

Scully. She'd risked everything to get him here. Her job, her future... A shiver ran through him as he remembered that she'd also risked her life, risked the horror of a bullet through the brain to try to find some shred of truth at his apartment.

He couldn't believe that he had honestly thought she might betray him. Even if she was right, even if they _had_ been drugging him, dragging him down into a senseless pool of his own violent thoughts...

She was the only one he trusted.

And she had brought him here, he thought, as he rose and headed into the next room, to help him find the truth. It had taken very little time for them to make a connection, he mused. That first case... And she had learned to trust him.

So why hadn't he learned to do the same?

They were bound together now. Pain, anger, justice... These were just a few of the strings that held them. The strings that made her give up everything for him. And he knew, instinctively, that he would do the same.

If he had had anything to give up in the first place.

His knock on the bathroom door was tentative, but he was answered immediately by the sound of hurried hands shutting off water, and an almost-frantic "Hang on a second!" that shouted back at him through the door.

Her hair was soaking wet, and her robe was racing to join it. Above her right eye, Mulder could still see the angry red of her scar--the sole sign that, only a few days ago, she might have been dead.

But for fate...

"Albert said he'd wait outside for you," she told him breathlessly. Her eyes turned soft and worried suddenly, as she looked him over. "Are you okay? They won't think to look for us here... You could--"

"I'm fine," he replied, his lopsided smile a shadow of its former self.

"Mulder..."

He gripped her hand lightly. "I'll be okay, Scully." With a final smile, he turned from her, heading for the other room, and Scully suddenly had the irrational fear that this might be the last time she ever saw him. As if she'd spoken aloud, he turned to her, that ghost haunting his features again.

"I'll call you and let you know what I find."

* * *

The drive out to the reservation took longer than Mulder had expected, and by the time the rental car that Scully had acquired for him turned onto Albert Hosteen's street, the FBI agent was almost shaking with anticipation. But there was still something he had to know, something that had plagued him since he and the old Indian had started this silent drive.

"You said you knew I was coming?"

Albert nodded sagely. "In the desert," he said quietly. "Things find a way to survive... Secrets are like this, too. They push their way up through the sands of deception so men can know them..." He seemed ready to say more, but broke off quickly as a small white house came into view. "Here, this is my house."

Mulder pulled up outside, sitting thoughtfully for a moment. "But why me?"

"You are prepared to accept the truth, aren't you?" Albert asked seriously. "To sacrifice yourself to it?"

"I don't understand."

Albert watched his quiet driver for a moment, gauging how much the young man might understand. "There was a tribe of Indians who lived here more than six-hundred years ago," he said, his voice in the rich cadences of a storyteller. "Their name was Anasazi. It means 'the Ancient Aliens'. No evidence of their fate exists. Historians say they disappeared without a trace. They say that because they will not sacrifice themselves to the truth."

"And what is the truth?" Mulder asked after a moment.

Albert smiled, the smile that had reminded Scully so much of her partner. "Nothing disappears without a trace."

His companion puzzled that through for a moment, and suddenly sat back a bit. "You think they were abducted?"

Albert nodded. "By visitors who come here still."

With that, he opened the door, heading for the house, where a young man stood waiting at the bottom of the steps. After a shocked moment, Mulder followed.

"What's buried out there?" he asked, as the young man straddled a small dirt bike, revving it up noisily.

"Lies," Albert replied simply. "You will see for yourself."

The old man simply watched as Mulder mounted the motorbike behind Eric.

And Mulder rode off silently... To see for himself.

* * *

The trek down the hill was hard on Mulder, jostling his aching arm with every unsure step. But the silver metal, floating just beneath the red desert sand, was enough to make him forget the pain, as he scrambled down toward what he hoped might be the truth.

His progress was stopped by the ringing of his cellphone.

"Mulder."

He would never have imagined hearing _that_ man on the line. "You're a hard man to reach," said a smoke-ravaged voice. Very chummy...

Mulder tried to keep his temper. "Not hard enough, apparently."

"Where are you?"

As if he'd give him the satisfaction! "I'm at the Betty Ford Center, where are you?"

The cancerous old man seemed to ignore the dig about the drugs in Mulder's water. "I need to talk to you, Mr. Mulder. In person. There are things to explain."

Mulder felt his temper getting out of hand. "Yeah, well, I'll save the government the plane fare--I just need to know which government that is."

Again, the barb was ignored. "Your father may have told you things, Mr. Mulder," the man continued calmly. "I should warn you not to take those things at face value."

"Yeah, and what things are those?" Mulder asked, suddenly very, very tired of this game.

"He was never an opponent of the project. In fact, he authorized it. That's what he couldn't live with."

"No," Mulder said, white-hot anger taking over, at the mere suggestion that, somehow, his father had brought his own death on himself. "He couldn't live with it because you had him killed!"

"We weren't involved in that--"

"Listen to me, you black-lunged, son-of-a-bitch!" Mulder shouted. "I'm going to expose you _and_ your project! Your time is over!"

"Expose anything, and you only expose your father--"

Mulder stabbed viciously at the disconnect button. His father, whatever he might have done in the past, was _not_ the one to blame here. Cancerman would be uncovered, and he would pay for Bill Mulder's death--or Fox Mulder would die in the attempt to bring him to justice.

* * *

Scully looked through the files again, jotting down notes about their contents. Mulder hadn't presented her with a full copy of the digital tape, but what she had was enough to scare her.

It was no secret that the U.S. Government had used the Axis powers to improve their position when Russia became the enemy of the day. Hundreds of Nazi and Japanese scientists, desperate to avoid Nuremberg, had willingly sold themselves to the United States, in exchange for simple freedom.

They had been, at least in part, responsible for the meeting of Kennedy's challenge that the U.S. be the first to put a man on the moon, and they had been instrumental in a dozen, major, medical breakthroughs in the years before Vietnam...

But Scully now realized just how high the price had been for those breakthroughs--and just how many innocent civilians had died for that knowledge.

Her morbid thoughts were shattered by her cellphone, and she picked it up nervously, wondering what was waiting for her on the other end of the line.

"Scully."

"Yeah, it's me." Mulder sounded preoccupied--and a little stunned.

"Where are you?"

"Nowhere I ever expected."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm in a boxcar," he replied quietly. "Buried inside a quarry.... There are bodies everywhere."

She shivered suddenly. "Bodies?"

She could almost hear him nodding. "Stacked floor to ceiling."

"What happened to them?"

Again, he was preoccupied, thinking, trying to piece this crime together, as he had all the other crimes they investigated. "I don't know."

With a shock, Scully realized that _she_ probably did. "Mulder," she said quickly, sifting through the notes before her. "In these files, I found references to experiments that were conducted here in the U.S. by Axis powers' scientists who were given amnesty after the war."

Mulder pulled himself out of his musings. "What kind of experiments?"

"Some kind of test," Scully replied, wishing once again that she had had more of these files. "On _humans._ What the files call 'merchandise'."

In a boxcar, miles away, Fox Mulder closed his eyes, finally starting to piece together the clues... Starting to understand what his father had been trying to tell him on the night he had died.

"But these aren't humans, Scully," he said quietly. "From the look of it, I'd say they were aliens."

"Are you sure?" she asked, missing--at least, for the moment--her usual hint of skepticism.

"I'm pretty damn sure," he replied, anger welling up in him. Had his father really been a party to this? He looked over the corpses before him, disgust rising--a disgust that was cut short suddenly, by the image of one of these corpses' arms. "Wait a second..." He crouched down to have a closer look at it. "This one... has a smallpox vaccination scar..."

He could hear papers ruffling over the line, as Scully hunted for something. "Mulder--"

With a creak, the hatch above him started to move, and Mulder yelled out in frustration as it slammed closed, locking him in this dark, tomb-like hell...

* * *

"Mulder!" Scully stood nervously, fear rising in her again.

"Mulder, what happened!!!?"

* * *

Somewhere in the New Mexico desert, a boxcar burned....

* * *

_The End_


End file.
